[Editor's note: Read part one of this article here.]

I've been a born-again carnivore since moving north from the city. Tofu doesn't grow on trees around here in Haida Gwaii, you know. But the slaughter -- well, I was there when we did in our chickens. I pulled the feathers from their skin. I skipped the turkeys; I can't remember how I got away with that. Lately we've been buying lamb, cut up and wrapped, from a farmer down the road. Oh fine, and a few steaks on Styrofoam from the grocery.

During my vegetarian days, I wasn't prepared to eat something I couldn't take responsibility for killing. Carrots I could pull, but slaughtering a cow? If you aren't going to build furniture, maybe you should sit on the floor, commented my meat-eating man. He had a point.

Barry chooses Harriet. She's the biggest and most ornery. It's time for her to go. Lenny, Team Pig's trapper, brings his .22 rifle at dawn. I wish I hadn't watched, but I did and that's all there is to it. I wasn't prepared for how long it takes a pig to stop moving when it dies.

Party preparation continues. Tom goes over on Thursday night to help attach the carcass to the spit, but the pig has been hanging for days and its back is twisted and bent. Drills and bolts come out. Things are done to its spine that don't seem right.

Problem number two: the rotisserie's maximum capacity is 130 pounds. Dead weight of the pig: 185 pounds without head. (And we thought they'd be 150 in September -- ha!) Off come the legs.

Barry and his friend Kim, who's come up from Vancouver, decide to start the coals at 3:30 a.m. on the day of the party. At 4 a.m., Wayne, who's building Barry's new barn, shows up, and by 5 a.m. they've almost lost the pig to the flames. Wayne builds a damper to cover the fire and Barry stands by with the hose. By 8:30 a.m., when we arrive, the pig skin is not as charred as Tom had feared. On the other hand, the inside is still cold.

Ruth has made muffins, bless her. We've brought an espresso pot for the stove. The fire burns, the pig rotates, but each turn tears the flesh from the bone. Tom dampens the fire and the drill comes out, then the butcher string, then the chicken wire. Finally, rebar stabilizes the carcass through each spin.

By noon, the day's heat is stifling and the inside of the pig is still cold. Tom begins to wonder how many ovens we'll need to cook the pig in pieces. But he's stubborn and perseveres. Sally, a friend who's come from the Yukon to visit relatives and help out with the feast, begins a side fire and Tom manages the heat, meat thermometer in hand. Coals here, coals there. A minimum temperature of 250 degrees on the skin. The pig continues to sashay around the rotisserie, but Tom slows the pace and cranks by hand every 15 minutes instead.

I escape to bake cornbread, get beer, buy chips. By 3 p.m. only he and Sally are left in the smoke.

Pigging out

A cross-section of islanders -- rippies and ruppies (our terms for redneck hippies and redneck yuppies) -- are invited to the feast. Cabin-dwelling government workers, Haida loggers, sunburned teachers, well-known artists, retired fishermen, young moms, the Hydro guy. The guests sit in a circle, as if there were a fire -- but stay well away from the smoky rotisserie. Everyone brings something -- strawberry shortcake, spicy green chimichurri, a big pot of beans -- but the beast has stolen the show. It crackles after hours on the fire. Two men lift the rod off, and within minutes a makeshift plywood table is covered in a greasy feast. The ravenous descend, picking through slabs of delicious pork roast for the even-more-scrumptious tenderloin.

The wannabe roasters deal with the bones, snapping the ribs off the carcass and putting them back over the coals. Tom, his T-shirt stretched with sweat, greasy handprints splayed on the back of his shorts, is done. A blues band plays as the sun goes down and the beer keg keeps pumping. By the end of the night, Ruth is the only one able to get up on the stage. She sings a song of thanks to our friends.

We take the islands' only limousine home with our neighbours Jen and Frank, sneaking Frida into the back. The limo driver slides open the window that divides him from us. "Next time, only humans." We pick her hairs off the carpet, the shelves of champagne flutes, the mirrors. Sure, we say. Frank hates dogs, but gets distracted and forgets by the time we get out several kilometres away. "Nice pigging with you," he says.

The slaughter

In September, we shoot the remaining pigs. Each time one goes down, the guys bleed it and hang it high off the bucket of the backhoe. The big machine trundles them across the yard to the trough of boiling water and the makeshift butcher table, where the rest of us scrape skin.